President of Hebrew University Presents Report to American Group

Eliahu Elath, president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Israel’s first Ambassador to the United States, said here this weekend that one of the major preoccupations of the university today was the training of secondary school teachers for Israel.

Addressing a national leadership conference of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, Mr. Elath stressed that the university was “bending every effort to produce an increasingly large number of able teachers without whom Israel cannot solve the critical problem of expanding secondary school education for the children of its citizens.”

Judge Simon E. Sobeloff of Baltimore, chairman of the conference, attended by 25 leaders from throughout the country, stressed in his keynote address that the American Friends of the Hebrew University is motivated by “profound considerations.” He described the organization’s work as “not merely a philanthropic undertaking, but a great enterprise in contemporary history, relating directly to the goals of American Jewish life.”

Dr. Albert B. Sabin, developer of live virus anti-polio vaccine, declared in an address to the conference that Israel’s experience in welcoming and absorbing almost 1, 000, 000 Oriental Jews from the Arab countries “provides the significant lessons for an international approach to the problems of the poverty-stricken countries of the world.” Other speakers at the conference included Israel Ambassador Avraham Harman; Dr. Nahman Avigad, head of the department of archeology of the Hebrew University; and Bernard Cherrick, executive vice-president of the university.